Posted on 08/26/2023 2:39:43 PM PDT by Libloather
A murderer who killed a preacher's wife in 1988 is set to become the first death row inmate in America to be executed with nitrogen.
Alabama officials want to put Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, to death by nitrogen hypoxia - forcing him to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die.
Several states have authorized the method, which is said to be painless, but it has still never been used.
Critics have said authorities would be 'experimenting with a never before used method - but even Smith has said he would prefer death by nitrogen to a lethal injection.
The Alabama attorney general's office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for Smith. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia.
Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. Proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless.
Alabama authorized the method in 2018 amid a shortage of drugs used to carry out lethal injections, but the state has not attempted to use it until now to carry out a death sentence.
Oklahoma and Mississippi have also authorized nitrogen hypoxia, but have not used it.
The disclosure that Alabama is ready to use nitrogen hypoxia is expected to set off a new round of legal battles over the constitutionality of the method.
Smith was one of two men paid $1,000 each to murder Elizabeth Sennett on behalf of her preacher husband, Charles Sennett Sr., who was in debt and wanted to collect life insurance money.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Is that what passes for writing these days? Shaking my head.
Vlad Tepes knew how to execute people ...
Thank you for these details,LIM. It’s a precious thing to learn something new each day. Cheers!
If they remove all the O2 I imagine it would do the trick.
I believe the theory is that he will go to sleep due to deprivation.
I guess we will find out.
But Helium is quite expensive.
Nitrogen is cheap and nonpolluting.
They could use hydrogen, while giving him his last cigarette.
“Oh, the humanity”
It’s worth it.
I like this type of execution. I would seal the death row chambers and not tell the condemned which night would be their last.
Actually what gives your body the impulse to breathe is the carbon dioxide levels in your blood. Nitrogen asphyxiation allows you to exhale, unlike strangulation, so you essentially fall asleep to death.
Thanks for the good explanations.
CO is even worse, of course.
Damn, at first I thought, cool, that they meant LIQUID nitrogen!
I saw Penn & Teller do a morning show gag once.
Penn dipped a rose in the stuff and shattered it on the counter, then dipped Teller’s hand and shattered IT, while Teller mimed screaming.
Then Teller smiled and his hand emerged from his sleeve as the talking head lady tried to regain her composure.
FReegards!
LOL!
For millennia, they’ve been trying to find the “right way” to execute a convict.
But there is no right way to do the wrong thing.
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